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by draculard



Series: Pellaeon/Thrawn 30 Day Ficlets [18]
Category: Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Blood and Injury, Fluff and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26506105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: It's only inevitable that one day their luck runs out and C'baoth catches them without an ysalimir on hand.
Relationships: Gilad Pellaeon/Thrawn | Mitth’raw’nuruodo
Series: Pellaeon/Thrawn 30 Day Ficlets [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904581
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





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“Sometimes,” Pellaeon huffed, “I get the feeling your parents let you run wild as a child and made you tend to all your own wounds.”

He ran his fingers through Thrawn’s hair as gently as he could, brushing it back from the bloody wound near his temple, and applied a bacta patch there. Thrawn turned his head away by reflex, burying his face in the flat military-issue pillow beneath him.

“Don’t do that,” said Pellaeon sharply, rapping his fingers against Thrawn’s skull not quite hard enough to hurt. “I’m working here.”

“This is unnecessary,” Thrawn said, but he turned his head back so Pellaeon could finish smoothing over the bacta patch. He even leaned into the touch.

“Unnecessary, my ass,” Pellaeon said, patting Thrawn’s head. “I’ve seen the med reports from when C’baoth took over the men on the bridge. It took them ages to recover.” He hooked his fingers in Thrawn’s collar and tugged slightly. “Now take this off. Let me see to your neck.”

Thrawn pushed himself up on his elbows, attempting to make the move look effortless; it wasn’t a very good attempt. Pellaeon let him struggle up a few inches before he hooked his arm under Thrawn’s waist and guided him the rest of the way up. Thrawn made a big show of handling the first button on his tunic by himself, his fingers clumsy, and then immediately submitted when Pellaeon batted his hands away.

“I never got anything worse than a few broken bones,” Thrawn said as Pellaeon undid the rest of the buttons on the tunic and pushed it down his shoulders. 

“Mm?” Pellaeon said distractedly, eyeing the bruises on Thrawn’s neck.

“When I was a child,” Thrawn clarified.

“Broken bones, Thrawn, are about as bad as it gets,” Pellaeon said sourly. He reached for the medkit and searched through it for a moment, shaking his head. “What are you imagining that’s worse than a broken bone? Evisceration? Spontaneous combustion? Was one of your friends crushed beneath a landing light cruiser, perhaps?”

“I did get stabbed once,” Thrawn said. He angled his chin up, giving Pellaeon better access to his throat — and possibly also avoiding the dark expression on Pellaeon’s face.

Pellaeon reached forward, gently feeling his way along the swollen areas on Thrawn’s throat. Thrawn’s eyes slid closed and he leaned forward, grasping Pellaeon’s tunic for support.

“Dizzy,” he murmured in explanation.

Pellaeon accepted this with a nod and a sharp pang of sympathy. “Do you feel anything sharp in your throat when you swallow?” he asked, prodding the area just below Thrawn’s jaw. 

“No.”

Pellaeon reached for an alcohol wipe and tore it open. “Good,” he said. Then, angling back toward Thrawn’s recent revelation, “When did you get stabbed? And where?”

“I was twelve,” said Thrawn, tensing a little as Pellaeon swabbed the alcohol wipe over his throat. “On my home planet.”

Pellaeon snorted a little as he finished wiping the small traces of dust and other debris off Thrawn’s neck from where he’d collapsed on the floor as C’baoth overtook him. “I meant where on your body,” he said.

“I know.”

Pellaeon pulled away, disposing of the wipe, accepting Thrawn’s words as a gentle plea for privacy. But when he turned back, Thrawn caught his wrist and guided Pellaeon’s hand, resting his palm against a tiny knot of scar tissue on his shoulder. He rubbed his thumb over it; a shallow wound, he thought, but one that could have caused Thrawn years of aches and pain.

“I won the fight, of course,” Thrawn said.

“Of course,” Pellaeon echoed, tracing the scar. “What was it, some sort of gang fight?”

“War games gone wrong,” Thrawn said, letting Pellaeon’s hand go. “You were right. My parents did let me run wild, a little.”

“A little,” Pellaeon said with a snort. He flicked open a tube of bacta gel and squirted some into his hand. Thrawn leaned back on the bed a little, stroking the ysalimir that was pressed up against his side — and would probably never leave him, Pellaeon thought. Not after C’baoth caught them off-guard today. 

He tried not to fume over it as he applied the bacta gel to Thrawn’s throat. Pure spite, that was all it was. There was no reason for C’baoth to take over Thrawn’s mind like that, the way he’d done to the bridge crew before. He’d done it only because he could, and somehow that made it ten times more infuriating. It was incomprehensible to him that Thrawn could sit here now, so relaxed and calm, practically basking in the uncommon amount of attention he was receiving as Pellaeon tended to his slight wounds. The bruises where C’baoth had Force-choked him; the gash on his temple where his head had struck the durasteel floor. 

If it were Pellaeon sitting here, shaken and unable to tend to himself, he wouldn’t be half so calm as Thrawn was. He’d be humiliated, outraged by the indignity of it. He was already both those things, on Thrawn’s behalf. 

But Thrawn didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, he was studying Pellaeon’s face as he worked, a slight smile tracing his lips.

“What?” Pellaeon asked as steadily as he could manage, drawing back for more bacta gel.

Thrawn leaned against the wall, taking the weight off his hands so he could shrug. “How did you know I tended my own wounds as a child?” he asked.

Pellaeon scoffed, shaking the tube of bacta gel. “You derive far too much enjoyment out of being tended to as an adult,” he said. “I half-suspect you’re faking symptoms now in the hopes that I’ll go fetch you some chicken soup and tuck you into bed.”

Thrawn hummed out what might have been a laugh at that. He sat up at Pellaeon’s urging and held still while Pellaeon re-dressed him, discarding the tunic in favor of a folded undershirt from Thrawn’s locker. He guided Thrawn’s arms through the sleeves, noting as he did so that, while Thrawn tried to help, his limbs were almost entirely dead weight. By the time Pellaeon led Thrawn to lie down on the mattress, he was shaking from the simple effort of sitting up.

Thrawn raised an eyebrow at him, looking almost pathetic with the bacta patch against his temple and the bruises on his throat. Pellaeon sighed.

“I’ll go get you some chicken soup,” he said. 


End file.
